NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover: Organics Possibly Present

This image illustrates possible ways methane might be added to Mars' atmosphere (sources) and removed from the atmosphere (sinks). 

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has detected fluctuations in methane concentration in the atmosphere, implying both types of activity occur on modern Mars. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAM-GSFC/Univ. of Michigan

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill.

"This temporary increase in methane, sharply up and then back down, tells us there must be some relatively localized source," said Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Curiosity rover science team.

"There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock."

Researchers used Curiosity's onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory a dozen times in a 20-month period to sniff methane in the atmosphere.

During two of those months, in late 2013 and early 2014, four measurements averaged seven parts per billion.

Before and after that, readings averaged only one-tenth that level.

Curiosity also detected different Martian organic chemicals in powder drilled from a rock dubbed 'Cumberland', the first definitive detection of organics in surface materials of Mars.

These Martian organics could either have formed on Mars or been delivered to Mars by meteorites.

Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life.

Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has ever harboured living microbes, but the findings do shed light on a chemically active modern Mars and on favorable conditions for life on ancient Mars.

"We will keep working on the puzzles these findings present," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (Caltech).

"Can we learn more about the active chemistry causing such fluctuations in the amount of methane in the atmosphere? Can we choose rock targets where identifiable organics have been preserved?"

Researchers worked many months to determine whether any of the organic material detected in the Cumberland sample was truly Martian.

Curiosity's SAM lab detected in several samples some organic carbon compounds that were, in fact, transported from Earth inside the rover.

However, extensive testing and analysis yielded confidence in the detection of Martian organics.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: New Mount Sharp panorama in transit

Curiosity rover panorama of Mount Sharp captured on June 6, 2014 (Sol 651) during traverse inside Gale Crater. Note rover wheel tracks at left. 

She will eventually ascend the mountain at the ‘Murray Buttes’ at right later this year. 

Assembled from Mastcam color camera raw images and stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. 

Credit: NASA /JPL /MSSS /Marco Di Lorenzo

Within the past Martian day on Friday, June 6, NASA's rover Curiosity captured a stunning new panorama of towering Mount Sharp and the treacherous sand dunes below which she must safely traverse before reaching the mountains foothills, while in transit to her primary destination.

See our brand new Mount Sharp photo mosaic above – taken coincidentally by humanity's emissary on Mars on the 70th anniversary of D-Day on Earth.

Basically she's eating desiccated dirt while running a Martian marathon.

Having said 'Goodbye Kimberley' after drilling her third bore hole deep into a cold red slab of enticing bumpy textures of Martian sandstone in the name of science, our intrepid mega Rover Curiosity is trundling along with all deliberate speed towards the inviting slopes of sedimentary rocks at the base of mysterious Mount Sharp which hold clues to the habitability of the Red Planet.

The sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the six wheeled robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals.

Such minerals could possibly mark locations that sustained potential Martian microbial life forms, past or present, if they ever existed.

The 1 ton robot is driving on a path towards the Murray Buttes which lies across the dunes on the right side of Mount Sharp as seen in our photo mosaic above, with wheel tracks on the left side.

She will eventually ascend the mountain at the 'Murray Buttes' after crossing the sand dunes.

Mars Rover Curiosity’s panoramic view departing Mount Remarkable and ‘The Kimberley Waypoint’ where rover conducted 3rd drilling campaign inside Gale Crater on Mars. 

The navcam raw images were taken on Sol 630, May 15, 2014, stitched and colorized. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars Rover Curiosity still has roughly another 4 kilometers of driving to go to reach the foothills of Mount Sharp sometime later this year.

Approximately four weeks ago, Curiosity successfully completed her 3rd drilling campaign since landing at the science waypoint region called "The Kimberley" on May 5, Sol 621, into the 'Windjana' rock target at the base of a 16 foot tall ( 5 Meter) hill called Mount Remarkable.

Mars was far wetter and warmer – and more conducive to the origin of life – billions of years ago.

The fresh hole drilled into "Windjana" was 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.5 centimeters) deep and resulted in a mound of dark grey coloured drill tailings piled around. It looked different from the initial holes drilled at Yellowknife Bay in the spring of 2013.

Composite photo mosaic shows deployment of NASA Rover Curiosity robotic arm and two holes after drilling into ‘Windjana’ sandstone rock on May 5, 2014, Sol 621, at Mount Remarkable as missions third drill target for sample analysis by rover’s chemistry labs. 

The Navcam raw images were stitched together from several Martian days up to Sol 621, May 5, 2014 and coloured. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Windjana lies some 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay.

Curiosity then successfully delivered pulverized and sieved samples to the pair of onboard miniaturised chemistry labs; the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM), for chemical and compositional analysis.

Before departing, Curiosity blasted the hole multiple times with her million watt laser on the Mast mounted Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument , leaving no doubt of her capabilities or intentions.

And she completed an up close examination of the texture and composition of 'Windjana' with the MAHLI camera and spectrometers at the end of her 7-foot-long (2 meter) arm to glean every last drop of science before moving on.

NASA's Curiosity rover drills sandstone slab Windjana on Mars

This May 5, 2014, image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows two holes at top centre drilled into a sandstone target called "Windjana." 

The farther hole was created by the rover's drill while it collected rock-powder sample material from the interior of the rock. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Portions of rock powder collected by the hammering drill on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from a slab of Martian sandstone "Windjana," will be delivered to the rover's internal instruments.

Rover team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received confirmation early today (Tuesday) of Curiosity's third successful acquisition of a drilled rock sample, following the drilling Monday evening (PDT).

The fresh hole in the rock target "Windjana," visible in images from the rover, is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.5 centimeters) deep.

The full-depth hole for sample collection is close to a shallower test hole drilled last week in the same rock, which gave researchers a preview of the interior material as tailings around the hole.

Jim Bell

"The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites," said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam).

"This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity's other instruments could reveal different materials than we've seen before. We can't wait to find out!"

The mission's two previous rock-drilling sites, at mudstone targets in the Yellowknife Bay area, yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that long ago provided conditions favourable for microbial life.

The rover's current location is at a waypoint called "The Kimberley," about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay, and along the route toward the mission's long-term destination on lower slopes of Mount Sharp.

Sample material from Windjana will be sieved, then delivered in coming days to onboard laboratories for determining the mineral and chemical composition: the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM).

The analysis of the sample may continue as the rover drives on from The Kimberley toward Mount Sharp. One motive for the team's selection of Windjana for drilling is to analyze the cementing material that holds together sand-size grains in this sandstone.

Perchlorates: Mars Chemical Changes Search for Red Planet Life

The Curiosity Rover took this composite self-portrait in the Rocknest sand patch on Mars. Tests of soil at the site suggest that troublesome chemicals called perchlorates are common on the Red Planet.

Credit: NASA

Astronauts sent to Mars on future space missions will have to contend with the toxic and explosive chemical known as perchlorate that's widespread in Red Planet dirt.

Perchlorates have already proved to be problematic for researchers using robotic rovers to hunt for possible traces of Martian life, a new study has found.

As part of its science mission, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity heats up scoops of Red Planet dirt to test for organic carbon compounds — the building blocks of life on Earth.

But that heat can cause perchlorates in soil samples to set off a chemical reaction that destroys organics, researchers discovered.

Daniel Glavin

"The presence of perchlorates isn't good news for some of the techniques currently being used with Curiosity," study lead author Daniel Glavin, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.

"This may change the way we search for organics in the future on Mars."

Perchlorates, which are salts comprised of chlorine and oxygen, were first detected in Martian polar soil by NASA's Phoenix lander in May 2008.

More recently, Curiosity found perchlorates while trekking around the Rocknest sand dune in November 2012.

Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) system uses a pyrolysis gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, which is an instrument that breaks soil down into its chemical components and measures the concentration of each type of molecule.

But when perchlorates in these soil samples are heated above 392 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius), they release pure oxygen, the researchers say.

This oxygen then causes organic molecules in the sample to combust into carbon dioxide.


However, Glavin said not all of the organic carbon would be destroyed in this reaction; some might be preserved inside more heat-resistant materials, or the molecules could possibly be detected before the breakdown of perchlorates.

Scientists might be able to account for the organic carbon that has combusted if they assume a certain baseline of perchlorate in Martian dirt, he added.

The recent findings at Rocknest could help scientists establish this baseline.

"It will be absolutely critical as we move on to other samples to compare them to the Rocknest dune to infer the presence or absence of Martian organic material," Glavin said in a statement.

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: 2% Water found in surface soil

Future Mars explorers may be able to get all the water they need out of the red dirt beneath their boots, a new study suggests.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has found that surface soil on the Red Planet contains about 2 percent water by weight.

That means astronaut pioneers could extract roughly 2 pints (1 liter) of water out of every cubic foot (0.03 cubic meters) of Martian dirt they dig up, said study lead author Laurie Leshin, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

"For me, that was a big 'wow' moment," Leshin told reporters. "I was really happy when we saw that there's easily accessible water here in the dirt beneath your feet. And it's probably true anywhere you go on Mars."

The new study is one of five papers published in the journal Science today (Sept. 26) that report what researchers have learned about Martian surface materials from the work did during its first 100 days on the Red Planet.



Soaking up atmospheric water
Curiosity touched down inside Mars' huge Gale Crater in August 2012, kicking off a planned two-year surface mission to determine if the Red Planet could ever have supported microbial life.

It achieved that goal in March, when it found that a spot near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay was indeed habitable billions of years ago.

Laurie Leshin

But Curiosity did quite a bit of science work before getting to Yellowknife Bay. Leshin and her colleagues looked at the results of Curiosity's first extensive Mars soil analyses, which the 1-ton rover performed on dirt that it scooped up at a sandy site called Rocknest in November 2012.

Using its Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM), Curiosity heated this dirt to a temperature of 1,535 degrees Fahrenheit (835 degrees Celsius), and then identified the gases that boiled off.

SAM saw significant amounts of carbon dioxide, oxygen and sulfur compounds — and lots of water on Mars.

Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM)

SAM also determined that the soil water is rich in deuterium, a "heavy" isotope of hydrogen that contains one neutron and one proton (as opposed to "normal" hydrogen atoms, which have no neutrons).

The water in Mars' thin air sports a similar deuterium ratio, Leshin said.

"That tells us that the dirt is acting like a bit of a sponge and absorbing water from the atmosphere," she said.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Sniffs, Drives and Tests it's Robotic Arm

The Mars Science Laboratory took in samples of the Martian atmosphere, started driving towards its first target site (Glenelg) and will park to test all the functions of its arm carrying scientific remote sensing intruments.